The Ha’penny Pier, our departure point, was built in 1850 and is so named because of the entrance fee. It was the boarding point for steamers until WW1 and the ticket office still stands, although originally it had 2 storeys and the pier was twice as long. However, it is from here that the Brightlingsea ran for 70 years.

 

The RNLI station and museum is a modern building to replace the old lifeboat shed that used to be on the pier. Harwich was the first station to use the new and largest Severn class lifeboat.

 

The Navyard (Navy Yard) is currently used for commercial ro-ro (roll on roll off) cargo bound for Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Belgium. It has been eyed up for future development and has a history as a ship building site officially adopted by Henry VIII. Harwich would built numerous ships of several hundred tons each over the next 300 years. Harwich also built the Mayflower, famous for taking the Pilgrim Fathers to America in 1620.

 

The treadmill crane can still be seen at 340 years old after a 260 year working life. It was once operated by French POWs by walking on the treads of a large wheel. It would have been used as a piece of shipyard equipment.

 

Beacon Hill Fort and Landguard Fort were proposed by Henry VIII but efforts to develop them were half hearted until the 19th century.  Beacon Hill Fortwas superseded by the Redoubt Fort, just 100m away and together with the battery at Shotley and Landguard Fort triangulated defences of the Haven. Things heated up with the Napoleonic threat and again in the 20th Century. In WWII, the haven was arguably the most important in Britain because of its North Sea access, proximity to East Anglian Air bases, local Radar development and potential to be the front line of any invasion.

 

The high and low lighthouses are now obsolete but once directed vessels into the Harbour, which could align the lights, one above the other, to show that they were coming in at the right angle. The original wooden beacons are long gone and they were replaced with a brick pair in 1818, redundant by 1863. A new pair was built in cast iron at Dovercourt. The brick low lighthouse is now the Maritime Museum and the high lighthouse is the private Harwich Wireless Museum.

 

Felixstowe Dock Basin is in the middle of the Port of Felixstowe and is due to be concreted over for expansion of port facilities. The Brightlingsea used to run from a pontoon within the dock basin but concerns for public safety eventually lead to a ban on public access.  ... MORE